Senator Homes

I wanted to add some comments to the review board, as I have been monitoring this board since before we decided to purchase our home in the Courtice location. Our home has not been built yet, but I wanted to share our experience thus far. This is our first new home and we took a lot of time to research before carefully choosing a builder. I found that the comments on this site made it very difficult to feel confident choosing Senator homes, but I think that having as much information as possbile can help you have a better experience.

Some of the comments written on here are defintiley important to consider and helped us to make our decision. One person complained of the $150 admin fee for changes, but it is clearly outlined in your decor package. Another, wrote that the decord centre was too far - yes, it is far, but also something you should have been aware of already.

We took a trip down to the decor centre prior to firming up on our offer to get a feel for the standard choices offered and to meet "Barb" who everyone seemed to be complaining of. I would agree that she is sometimes unprofessional, but I think she is very nice and only trying to make people feel more at ease because making all of the decor choices can be overwhelming. That said, she did take personal phone calls during our appointment more than once and did spend too much time telling personal stories. However, she did do a great job helping us put together kitchen and bathroom colours and knew a lot about the product offered. As well, she was not pushy about upgrades and allowed us the time to decide what would be best for us.

I think it is best to research what type of upgrades you want before signing your offer and getting them to void the $5000 in upgrades in leu of specific ones on your contract. We did this and were able to negotiate many upgrades that went over the $5000 mark. Some upgrades that you may want to consider is upgrading the carpet underpad, as it's very thin, adding a drain into your laundry room, running a water hose to your fridge (if you have a fridge that has the water and ice dispencer), running your TV cables away from the fireplace(HDMI), and putting a rough-in for a bathroom in the basement. You may not need all of these, but they are things that you cannot do easily after you get the house.

My next piece of advice would be to ask as many questions as possible before signing anything! By getting answers to as many questions as possible, you will have less surprises later. One thing I was adament about was including that a professional home inspector be able to do the PDI with us. They wrote it in the amendment for me. A professional home inspector will check our places that you may not be able to. It is also important that any changes made on the amendment be sent to your lawyer and looked over, again before you SIGN anything! It is your job to look out for you.

Another thing I thought was important is that sometimes if you ask Bob a questions, he will tell you an answer, but that answer isn't always correct. Anything you are questioning, ensure it is put in the contract in writing. For instance, Bob told us that the driveway will be double paved, but it doesn't say that on the feature list so we had him write it in. Unless it is in writing, you don't have much ground.

I hope all of that information helps the next person who buys a home with Senator. As mentioned before, we are going through the process, but we will keep posting our experience on the site and offering any advice we gain through our experience along the way.